Rage
by Zillah 91
Summary: Something out of the ordinary is happening: Tokyo is tearing itself apart through a wave of violent crime that infects human and animal alike- and the kaiju are getting the worst of it. And then the people begin to mutate... T for violence. COMPLETE.
1. Chapter 1

Greetings, and welcome to the third in a series of off-beat Godzilla tales that I've put together. I have here what is essentially a re-imagining of the abandoned idea of… well, I won't say. Let's see if anyone can guess. Enjoy.

Godzilla is © Toho

* * *

CHAPTER ONE

**_Tokyo International College_**

"Meanwhile, reports continue to swirl regarding rumours of an undisclosed joint project between…"

Professor Ken Shimura switched off the TV and returned to his notes. All the news had been reporting besides some kind of military rumour was a twenty-four-hour news cycle regarding a fight between Godzilla and some kind of mutant in Hokkaido. Bizarre though it might be to think, it had become simply part of the political environment when creatures like that turned up. Prof. Shimura was aware of it, of course, in the same way that people were aware of, say, the war in the Middle East. Besides, the constant buzz of the TV had been distracted, especially when he had work to do.

The telephone jingled outside his office. Ken looked up and heard his daughter answer the phone; she lived with him in campus accommodation and tended to accompany him to the lab when he worked late, even though she was only seven. Money had been tight lately, and he couldn't afford to hire a sitter or lose his job.

The door opened, and the little girl entered and handed the phone to her father. "It's for you," she said.

"Thank you, Aoki," Ken smiled as he picked up the phone. "Hello, this is Professor Shimura."

"Professor," the voice on the other end of the line replied, "this is Base Commander Tagaki from the Monster Island research facility. We'd like you to examine something for us."

"Oh," Ken stuttered, "w-well, kaijuology isn't my field, but I'd love to."

"Well, actually, Professor… we need you to examine a rock for us."

"A rock?" Ken blinked, "I'm sorry, Commander, but I'm a biologist. If you like, I can refer you to our geology department."

"But you are Japan's foremost researcher in the field of pathology?"

"Well, yes, but-"

"Professor…" Tagaki said anxiously, "you should really see what's happening down here."

**_Tokyo's Akihabara District_**

**_Two Weeks Later_**

"On the ground! Now!"

Officer Koji Kobayashi fired a warning shot from his service robot. The killer fell sideways in a moment of blind panic, and that was all it took for Kobayashi to tackle him to the ground. They both landed with a thick splash. It was pouring with rain. It had been all day.

"You, you sick bastard," Kobayashi snarled as he slapped the cuffs on the man, "are under arrest for double homicide." He pulled the perpetrator to his feet and slammed him against the wall.

"You got him?" A voice shouted from behind. Kobayahi's partner, Shoichi Tsukioka, scrambled over the wire-mesh fence.

Koji felt a sharp rush of irritation as he glanced up at his fellow officer. Where the hell had he been? He'd chased this murdering psychopath for five blocks, for God's sake.

The killer looked up and spat out a mouthful of blood.

"Damn," Tsukioka shuddered. "What the hell is with this guy?"

"Why'd you do it?" Kobayashi demanded.

The killer glared at them, and grinned a red grin. Then he said, in a sing-song voice:

"It made me happy."

Five minutes later, Kobayashi was slamming the door shut on the police van that contained the man who'd killed two university students by hacking at them with a meat cleaver. What Kobayashi had seen in that dorm room… things like that made him regret ever becoming a detective.

"Any I.D. on this guy?" Tsukioka asked.

"And where the hell were you?" Kobayashi snapped, wiping some rainwater from his face.

Tsukioka blinked. "Jeez, Kobayashi, you saw it," he said defensively, "guy hit me with a trashcan."

Kobayashi felt an instant stab of shame. "Sorry," he shook his head, "I think this just got to me, y'know?"

"No problem. So did we get an I.D.?"

"Oh, you're gonna love this," Kobayashi muttered, reaching into his soaked jacket and pulling out a wrap of papers. "Mitsuo Chujo. Forty years old, family man, no history of mental illness, and the guy never hurt a fly in his life." And he hadn't thought the case could be any worse.

His cell phone jangled in his pocket. Raising his fingers in a 'two-seconds' gesture to Tsukioka, Kobayashi answered. "Hello?"

"Hi, honey," his wife's voice said tiredly, "just wondering if you were finished yet?"

"I'll probably be back in an hour, Hidemi," the officer near-groaned, rubbing his sore, tired eyes. "See you soon."

"You do realise," Tsukioka said as Kobayashi pocketed his phone, "the media's going to tear us a new one after this."

"That's the Captain's problem," Kobayashi shrugged. "For us, all this crap lately means we just have more work to do."

"Tell me about it," Tsukioka sighed. "What's this, the third loony this week? And that's just the two of us."

Kobayashi nodded grimly and turned his attention to a row of TV sets in an electronic store next to which the cars were parked.

"Police Captain Sendai has come under repeated fire for the sudden spate of violent crimes around Tokyo, with some alleging group connections or links to organised crimes, but Captain Sendai insists that the incidents are not related."

**_Kobayashi's home_**

Hidemi Kobayashi woke up slowly, opened her eyes and saw only empty sheets. With a sigh, she sat up and pushed messy, auburn hair out of her face.

Koji, as it turned out, was already up and preparing breakfast. "You're up early," Hidemi yawned.

"I couldn't sleep," Koji shrugged.

"The case?" Hidemi said softly.

"Can we not talk about that?" Koji groaned as his wife wrapped her arms around him.

"You should take the day off," she advised, "the office can last a day without you."

"Hidemi, can we please just not-"

"I just hate seeing you like this."

"Hidemi!" Koji snapped. His wife immediately let go of him and stepped back. "I'm sorry," he said, flustered. He let out a heavy sigh and turned his attention back to the eggs in the frying pan.

Then he looked down, and his stomach contracted.

Without realising it, he'd taken hold of a knife.

**_Tama Zoo_**

The cup of coffee hadn't helped, Koji observed bitterly as he threw it into the trashcan. God, how stressed had he been?

It had just happened without him even realising. He was actually holding a knife, and thinking of… he was going to see a psychiatrist, he decided. This was extreme, even for a homicide detective.

"Detective Kobayashi," he introduced himself to the zookeeper who met him.

"Shin Gendo," the man shook his hand. "This way, please."

"I still don't understand," Koji mentioned, "you said no people were involved in what happened?"

"Well, no," the zookeeper admitted, pointing to one of the cages, "but… who the hell do you call when this happened?"

Two Bengal tigers were lying on their sides in the pens… at least, parts of them were. Strings of blood and chunks of flesh were strewn over the cage floor that, Koji suspected, wasn't meant to be red.

"God," he breathed. He gagged at the stench of the flesh. "What happened?"

"They killed each other," the zookeeper shuddered. "It was the same all over the place; lions, bears, sharks, everything that's kept outdoors."

Koji felt a chill run up his spine. Now animals were killing each other as well? He turned and looked to the city skyline. There was something wrong with this city. Ten years in homicide gave him enough instinct to tell, and there was no mistaking it: Tokyo was tearing itself apart.

**_The Pacific Ocean_**

Somewhere, miles into the inky blackness of the deepest parts of the South Pacific, in an undersea chasm, a leviathan stirred. A reptilian snout turned up in the water with a deep rumble.

A gigantic eye opened slowly, burning with a cold intelligence that had nothing to do with reason or logic. It was, rather than an intellect, a set of refined instincts, all anger and territorialism.

And right at that moment, every one of those instincts told it that something was very, very wrong.

With a low growl, Godzilla began to drift out of his lair.

* * *

And so it begins- so just what's happening? Violent crime? Animals killing each other? How does that relate to the beginning of the story? What role could a homicide detective play in a Godzilla saga?

Anyway, this story was inspired by a Spider-Man storyline I'm reading. What's behind these events, however, is a guaranteed idea of my own as I haven't read the actual story. As for how the crime in Tokyo relates to the monster happenings… well, wait for the next chapter and you'll see!

Godzilla is © Toho


	2. Chapter 2

**The Story So Far**: (figured I'd start each chapter like this) Professor Ken Shimura at Tokyo International College is called to examine a "rock" on Monster Island. Two weeks later, Tokyo is in the grip of a violent crime spree, with a strange anger seeming to infect its citizens- even Ken Kobayashi, a homicide detective. Many animals at Tama Zoo go berserk and kill each other. Meanwhile, Godzilla senses that something is wrong.

And there we have it. Just something I feel like doing. Still nobody's guessed the enemy monster in this story; in response to destroyahirismix#666's review, Koji Kobayashi is in fact named for the hero of "Godzilla Raids Again"; Hidemi and Tsukioka also bear their names for that reason.

* * *

CHAPTER TWO

**_Two Weeks Ago_**

**_The Monster Island Containment Facility_**

Even if it wasn't his field of research, a visit to Monster Island was a dream come true for Ken Shimura, much like any biologist worth his salt; by all laws of nature, such creatures could not possibly exist. They couldn't evolve. They couldn't support their own weight. And yet here they were- and he was, standing in the island's command centre and watching the screens that displayed the island's amazing menagerie.

The brown quadruped with the clubbed tail and the spiky carapace, he recalled, was Anguirus. The orange-brown creature with the membrane between its limbs was Varan, and the dull-brown, flying reptile was Rodan. The first two were both contained within domes of semi-transparent energy hat buzzed with electricity whenever their occupants touched the sides. Rodan was given a limited area to fly in; an electric collar fastened to its neck served as a target for turrets that shot small beams of energy into it, turning it back into its permitted space.

Even though he had never seen one of these animals up close, Professor Shimura could tell there was something wrong. Anguirus and Varan were howling with rage, thrashing their tails and repeatedly throwing themselves against the walls of their enclosures. Rodan rolled and howled in the air, whipping up the tops of trees as it scraped against the side of the island's volcano.

"They've been like this for three days," Base Commander Tagaki mused from beside the professor. "It's not even like when they sense a predator. They're just… angry. Yesterday, Rodan slammed into Varan's dome and they tried to get at each other until they knocked themselves out. So the question is…"

Professor Shimura answered the question for him. "What's doing this to them?"

**_Now_**

**_Tokyo_**

Kobayashi slumped into his chair and took a sip of coffee. His hands were still shaking. He took a sharp breath and leaned back. It was the stress, he told himself again. He had a stressful job. That was it.

But he was about to pull a knife on Hidemi. On his own wife!

"Hey, boss," one of his fellow officers announced gleefully, "you're gonna love this. We got something."

"We have a break in the case?" Koji repeated. It could be- at last.

"The highest concentration of violence in the past two weeks," the officer replied, "is around Tokyo International College. Think something's going on there?"

Before he could say another word, Koji had grabbed his coat and left the office.

**_Tokyo International College_**

The door into Professor Ken Shimura's lab opened. Detective Kobayashi looked down at the seven-year-old who opened it. "You must by the Professor's daughter," he smiled. Cute kid. "Is your dad here?"

The girl nodded and led him inside. "Dad?" she called to one of the desks, "the policeman's here?" The scientist looked up. He was in his thirties, already with what looked like a few greys. He looked exhausted.

"Thank you, Aoki," he said. As the girl walked out, he stood up to greet the officer. "Professor Shimura," he introduced himself. "What can I do for you?"

"I'm Detective Kobyashi," Koji introduced himself, "I just need to ask you a few questions about the recent… incidents… around your campus."

"Last I heard, it wasn't just this college," Shimura sighed heavily. "I'm afraid I don't know what's happening. Not a month ago, Japan was one of the safest countries in the world, did you know that? You could leave your wallet on a subway train, and when it came back round your wallet would still be there. Now, we've got this… did you hear about that office worker? They said he drove his car into the path of a train with his whole family in it."

Kobayashi shuddered. He hadn't investigated that case personally, but a friend had. The details sounded far from pleasant.

"Have you seen anything out of the ordinary lately?" Koji asked, "Non-violent, I mean."

"You mean hushed whispers, that sort of thing? No, I'm afraid not," Shimura admitted. "I'm sorry, Detective, but you probably know ten times more about what's happening than I do."

A few more minutes passed in which Koji questioned the professor, but from the sound of it, he really had no idea what was happening. Eventually, he just had to finish with "thank you for your time, Professor."

"Not at all. I should be going anyway. Aoki needs her medicine."

"Medicine?"

The Professor cast a mournful look towards his daughter, who was sat reading a children's book. "Muscular dystrophy," he shuddered, "the doctor said she'll be in a wheelchair by the time she's ten," he choked back a harsh sob.

"I'm sorry," Koji said quietly.

"Don't be," Shimura sighed heavily. "It's why I took the job here- this college has the best place for medical research. I focused on pathology so that…" he bit his bottom lip, "so that I could find a cure."

Koji nodded sympathetically. "I'll let you get back to work," he said, then left without another word.

**_That Night_**

Koji looked thoughtfully at his report from the Shimura interview. Poor guy, he thought to himself. It must be awful, seeing that happen and knowing he couldn't do a thing.

"Koji?" Tsukioka asked, approaching his desk, "phone call."

"Tell them I'll call them back."

"It's important."

"I said I'll call them back!" Kobayashi snapped. "Sorry," he said, ashamed, then turned back to his work. "I'm just finishing the Shimura report."

"It's Shimura on the phone," Tsukioka pointed out, "he wants to talk to you. Asked for you by name."

Kobayashi took the phone. "Hello?"

"Detective?" Shimura's voice wheezed from the other end. "Oh, God- you have to get over here. Please!"

"Professor," Koji said, standing up and trying to calm the man, "slow down. What happened?"

"Oh- Oh my God- I- Detective, it- it's Aoki…"

"What about her?"

"I think- I- I think I…"

"You what?" Koji's heart began to pound. Oh, please, no… it was mad. He could already tell Shimura wouldn't do something like that. But somehow, with everything happening in the city, nothing seemed impossible. "Professor, please, just tell me what happened."

"I…" Shimura sobbed, "Detective, I… I've done something terrible!" he wailed as he broke down.

Wait…

"What, Professor?"

His voice, Koji realised. Somehow, Shimura's voice had just sounded different.

"I've done something to Aoki!" There. The voice was somehow deeper. Almost double-barrelled. "I think she… I'm sorry…"

There was static. And before, the most primal thing Koji had ever heard. It was a roar, deep, rumbling and inhuman.

* * *

To be continued! More pieces to the puzzle! NEXT CHAPTER: One of THREE monster villains to turn up in this story! Don't miss the attack of… oh, you'll see.

All Reviews Welcome!


	3. Chapter 3

**The Story So Far**: Professor Ken Shimura of Tokyo International College is called to Monster Island, where something is driving the monsters berserk. Two weeks later, Tokyo is in the midst of a violent crime wave that seems to be centred around the college. Detective Koji Kobayashi investigates and meet Shimura; shortly after, the professor calls him in a moment of panic, saying that he has done something terrible. The last thing Koji hears is an inhuman sound…

Man, I can't believe nobody's guessed yet, though maybe the identity of the enemy monster is only obvious to me since I'm writing the story. Anyway, as you may have guessed, there'll be a snippet from two weeks earlier at the start of each chapter, so the origins behind the current situation will gradually be revealed. And so everyone remembers, what we'll see here is NOT the main monster antagonist.

Godzilla is © Toho

* * *

CHAPTER THREE

**_Two Weeks Ago_**

**_The Monster Island Containment Facility_**

"Keep back," Tagaki advised as two of Monster Island's scientists opened the heavy steel door. Professor Shimura squinted in the bright light from inside the room.

There it sat, on top of a small metal pedestal, in a transparent square case. It was less than a foot wide; a small lump of irregular, jagged rock.

"What kind of rock is this?" Shimura asked dumbly. As he'd said, he was a biologist, not a geologist.

"No idea," Tagaki confessed, "other than it's not from these parts."

"Excuse me?"

"It crashed down on one of the Aleutian Islands a few days ago, and we brought it here."

"To Monster Island?" Shimura asked incredulously.

"Best place to keep anything dangerous- mainly because if anything ever goes wrong, the local wildlife will probably tear it to pieces before it gets past the beach."

"So," Shimura shrugged, "what kind of… meteor… is it?"

"I don't know, but we assigned some geologists to it."

"And?"

Tagaki looked grimly at him.

"They tried to kill each other."

**_Now_**

**_South Pacific Ocean_**

Captain Smythe turned away from the empty net in disgust. It had been an abysmal week for fishing, even if he had no idea why. The waters around Japan had become barren in a matter of days.

"Captain," the first mate said bitterly, "we're not going to get anything tonight, and according to the barometer, the weather isn't going to improve."

Smythe sighed. "Right. Bring her in."

"Captain?" One of the men shouted from inside the cabin, "the sonar's picking up something big!"

"Submarine? Whale?"

"No," the man shook his head, eyes widening in fear, "too big for that…"

The water bulged. Three thick rows of jagged, star-shaped grey dorsal fins broke through the surf before a reptilian snout and a blazing pair of orange eyes.

Turning his head and tensing himself, the 180-foot of muscle and scale known to the world as Godzilla sniffed at the air and, with a low rumble, began to move.

**_Tokyo International College_**

"Will you just slow down," Tsukioka gasped as he struggled to keep pace with Kobayashi across the campus, "and tell me what the hell is going on?"

"I don't know," Kobayashi growled, "just tell backup to be ready and hope to hell that my guess is wrong." He tightened his grip around his service revolver. "Come on, doc," he muttered under his breath, "just don't do anything…"

The door clicked open.

The short corridor that led to the lab was empty and silent. No… there. Footsteps. A shape rounded the corner.

"Professor Shimura?" Kobayashi called. The shape turned. Immediately, well-honed cop instincts kicked in, and he shouted "freeze!" while raising his gun. The figure stopped immediately and threw up its hands.

"Waitwaitwait!" the young voice yelled, "don't shoot!" It was a young man, about nineteen years old, short brown hair.

"Who are you?" Kobayashi demanded.

"Gendo Yamane," the student gasped, "look, I didn't do- whatever someone did. I just heard a scream, and-and…"

"A scream?"

"Yeah, I was about to call the cops…"

"When?"

"What?"

"When did you hear it?" Kobayashi shouted.

"A minute ago. Inside the lab."

"Check the door," Kobayashi called behind him. Tsukioka did so, and it creaked open slowly. The lab was, bluntly, a wreck. Desks were overturned, papers and beakers were strewn around and computer banks had been torn out. Electrical systems still buzzed and fizzed in flickering light.

"Professor Shimura?" Kobayashi called into the dark. "Aoki? Anyone here?"

There was movement; fast, unexpected and with the impact of a sledgehammer. Kobaysahi felt himself fly across the room, slamming into a desk. He felt a rib cracked, clenching his jaw to keep from crying out at the stab of pain. He looked up slowly.

The thing was dark grey, slim, vaguely human in shape and at least six feet tall. Its head and shoulders were covered in what looked like some kind of glistening, lumpy fungus, and its hands, now not so much hands as clumps of thick, lashing tendrils, reached down to the door. It was hunched over, and what looked at least something like a mouth gave an inhuman howl from the lump of fungus that served as its head. Kobayashi realised only three things: firstly, that he had no idea what the hell he was looking at. Secondly, that whatever it was, it was not human.

Thirdly, an ID badge was dangling from one hand.

"Oh Jesus," Kobayashi grimaced, "Professor? My God, is that you?"

The thing looked down, howled, and lashed out with one lump "hand". Kobayashi rolled to the side as the desk was crushed under the blow, and the thing followed, thrashing madly. On some instinctive level, it clicked within Kobayashi's brain that whatever this thing was, it wasn't just attacking: it was angry. Raging. Mad.

Somewhere nearby, Gendo Yamane grabbed a fire extinguisher and swung it at the monster's head. The metal shape struck the gruesome thing's head once, twice, three times. Then it lashed out, wrapped one hand around Yamane's head, and pulled.

Kobayashi squinted as a thin rain of blood splattered over him. Gendo's body slumped to the floor.

"Oh God," he stammered as the thing turned towards him, "Oh God, oh God…"

The monster approached, raised one hand…

A shot exploded in the air. Then another. Then another. Then another. A fungal sac burst open in a shower of green blood, and the thing fell to the floor.

Tsukioka, his service revolver still smoking, helped Kobayashi up.

"You OK?"

"Yeah," Kobayashi breathed, "yeah… Jesus, what the hell was that?"

The creature suddenly spasmed, thrashing its limbs as its entire mass seemed to pulsate, then waver and shrink, liquefying and congealing into a single, smaller mass as whatever transformation had taken place reversed itself.

"What is that thing?" Tsukioka gaped as he saw the flesh-coloured skin beneath. "Is that the professor?"

Kobayashi was about to confirm it, but then, as the last of the fungus parted, he saw…

"No…"

He recognised who was lying in the middle of reeking, crumbling fungus.

Aoki Shimura.

Seven years old.

Bleeding to death.

* * *

DUN-DUN-DUUUUHHHHN!! Ok, hands up: who thought it was the professor? That was a Matango, by the way, the Aoki was turned into, and they'll have a revised origin here- but where did it come from? What is its connection to the meteorite? And what is the real enemy monster in the story?

All Reviews Welcome!


	4. Chapter 4

Right: Chapter the fourth, and the introduction of a second villainous kaiju. Now, one reviewer has asked when I will return to the Kaiju Wars series: the answer is –maybe- after this story is finished.

The Story So Far: Professor Ken Shimura is called to examine a rock on Monster Island, where the monsters are being driven into fits of rage. Two weeks later, Tokyo is in the grip of a violent crime wave. Detective Koji Kobayashi meets Shimura, who later calls him and says he has done something terrible. Kobayashi and his partner Tsukioka are attacked by a mutated human that they believe to be Shimura, but when shot, it turns out to instead be his seven-year-old daughter, Aoki. Koji realises that the child is dying…

* * *

CHAPTER FOUR:

**_Two Weeks Ago_**

**_The Monster Island Containment Facility_**

"Any theories, Professor?" Commander Tagaki asked as he drove the Army jeep that carried himself and Shimura down the dirt road. To their right, Varan slammed its weight against the side of the cage.

"If there are any organic compounds in the rock," Shimura muttered, "perhaps it could be some kind of virus… but the kaiju haven't been exposed to it. So where are we going now?" he asked aloud.

"To see the researchers," Tagaki replied.

"But…" Shimura blinked, "we're heading to a containment dome."

"I know."

The jeep stopped, and Shimura looked up at the semi-transparent wall of energy.

Filling the dug-out space of earth, occasionally jumping and clawing at the buzzing walls, were at least a dozen seven-foot-tall, humanoid… what Shimura could only describe as 'fungus-monsters'.

"What are they?"

"They were half of our researchers," Tagaki replied gravely. "All exposed to what we've codenamed 'Matango'."

**_Now_**

**_Tokyo Central Hospital_**

Every head in the foyer turned round as the door was kicked in and Detective Koji Kobayashi charged in with a seven-year-old girl in his arms.

"This girl needs medical attention," he shouted, "now!"

"Who are you?" the nearest doctor demanded.

"Detective Kobayashi, police, now stop wasting time and get her on a stretcher."

"You can't just come in here and…"

"This is a seven-year-old child who's been shot, now take care of here or I'll arrest you right now!"

"For what?"

"I'll think of something. Now get to work!"

Without another word of objection, the doctor took the child and placed her on a stretcher.

Kobayashi collapsed against the nearest wall and tried to control his gag reflex. He'd tried to call an ambulance right after Aoki had been shot, but every damn line had been busy. It reminded him that, even while all this had been happening, the city had still been tearing itself apart. The only option had been to put the child in the back of his patrol car and drive like hell.

"You Ok?" Tsukioka asked, approaching with a cup of coffee.

"What the hell was that, Sho?" Kobayashi snapped, "We'll be lucky if the kid isn't dead!"

"Well excuse me for saving your ungrateful ass!" Tsukioka shouted back, "and how the hell was I supposed to know it was the kid? I thought it was…"

They both froze. "Shimura," they said in unison. In the confusion, both of them had completely forgotten that they hadn't the first clue as to the professor's whereabouts. With that realisation, the sudden anger, and the mystery of how it had come over them, was forgotten.

"Detectives Kobayashi and Tsukioka?" a voice asked from beside them. Both cops turned to see the suited man with a silver briefcase. "My name is Jin Shindo. G-Force."

**_Elsewhere_**

In a small, closed-off ward in the hospital, Shindo put down and opened the briefcase. "What you're about to see, gentlemen," he began, "is classified. The Monster Island containment facility suffered a Code Orange around two weeks ago. That's a biological contamination. A viral attack."

"Well, no offence," Tsukioka chimed in, "but what does that have to do with us?"

"Professor Shimura was there during that time for around a day. He then returned to Tokyo with a fragment of a meteorite of unknown origin."

"Wait," Kobayashi interrupted, "what exactly are you telling us?"

"The researchers on Monster Island," Shindo continued, "were mutated over a period of several days. Of course, nobody figured out exactly what was happening, because… well, because by the time they did, they were altered into Matango."

"Matango?"

"What Professor Shimura's daughter was turned into."

"So," Kobyashi realised as those cop instincts kicked in, "are you saying that's what's been causing this? Some kind of virus?"

"Precisely."

"And Professor Shimura brought it to Tokyo?"

"Yes."

"…why the hell did he do that?"

"For study, of course. Evidently the virus some how got out of containment. As near as we can tell, though, it isn't contagious. It can only be contracted by direct exposure to the meteorite. But that doesn't expect what's been happening to the monsters, or to the people here."

"So it's not the virus?"

"Actually…"

**_Ward 26_**

Tsukioka retched as Shindo pulled back the curtain.

Every bed in the ward was filled with slowly-stirring, groaning humanoid shapes, and every one of them was, if not changed, changing. The faces of some were half-covered in fungal growths. Others' arms still ended in those long, twisted tendrils. Some were no longer even identifiable as human.

"This virus is spreading," Shindo said dreadfully, "and we have no idea how. All we know is that if it's not stopped… in a few days, what's happened to these people could affect the whole of Tokyo, and it doesn't look like it'll stop there. This, gentlemen, has every bit enough potential to become a worldwide epidemic."

Tsukioka covered his mouth. "Jesus…"

"Is Professor Shimura among these people?" Kobayashi asked immediately.

"No," Shindo shook his head gravely, "and he just might be the only person with the knowledge to stop what's happening. The only thing is… this is the first case in Tokyo wherein someone was mutated as severely as this. It's as if the child was somehow given a much stronger dose."

"Wait a second," Kobayashi realised, "are you saying that Shimura might have done this on purpose?"

"My God," Tsukioka shuddered, "what the hell would make a man do that to his own daughter?"

**_Operating Theatre_**

As the doctors bustled around here, Aoki Shimura lay unconscious and bleeding, and the child's mind drifted back.

She'd been sitting in the lab, working on her spelling homework, and she'd looked up to see her father enter.

"Aoki," he said so quietly that he almost whispered, "I… I've got it."

"Got what?" Aoki asked.

"It told me," Shimura breathed shakily, "it told me what to do. It told me my mistake. Don't you see… all those years, all that time I spent trying to cure you, trying to stop you getting weaker… instead, what I should have been doing was rebuilding. Making you stronger…" he took out a syringe.

"D-Daddy?" Aoki shivered, "what are you doing?"

"Just close your eyes, Aoki," Shimura whispered as he held up the syringe, "it'll all be Ok soon…"

**_The Monster Island Containment Facility_**

**_Now_**

Officially, there were three monsters contained in the Monster Island facility.

Unofficially, however, was a different matter. What was held under the facility was wisely considered to be far more dangerous than the other three inmates combined.

A moment ago, Commander Tagaki had been informed of a containment breach. Now he was looking at the charts of something that should be completely frozen within a massive cryogenic chamber. Pulse, brain activity, adrenaline, everything was rising.

Damn it, he'd told them. He'd told them to destroy that thing. It was too dangerous to keep locked up. Godzilla, Mothra, M.O.G.U.E.R.A. and Anguirus combined barely took it down the last time. But no, they'd said that the first alien life form ever captured alive was too valuable. So it was placed in cryogenic suspension and locked up two hundred feet beneath Monster Island.

Now, as Tagaki felt his stomach tie itself in knots, the most merciless, dangerous thing on the planet had been reached by whatever force was affecting the monsters. It would escape. It would not stop until it had slaughtered every living thing.

Outside, the ground exploded in a cloud of dust and scattered rock as something massive clawed its way up from the past freezing chamber.

It was free. Somehow, this disease had reached it, and the rage had woken it up. It had smashed its way through layers of earth, steel and concrete and now it was out.

King Ghidorah was awake.

* * *

TO BE CONTINUED!!

No, KG is not the main threat in the story, but as it's been said, he's still far from a mediocre threat. I basically thought it would be a cool way to have Ghidorah, locked up under a metaphorical sign saying "do not release, will end the world". And if he's not stopped, he will, indeed, end the world.

So: space-born virus. We've had one correct guess so far, but surely someone else is bound to guess the identity of the unused kaiju that will be our antagonist now.

NEXT CHAPTER: Monster Island goes mad!

All Reviews Welcome!


	5. Chapter 5

**The Story So Far**: A meteorite crashes to Earth and is recovered to Monster Island, where Professor Ken Shimura is called to examine it. Two weeks later, Tokyo is in the grip of a string of violent crime, and people begin to mutate into bizarre alien fungus creatures dubbed "Matango". Meanwhile, King Ghidorah, infected by what seems to be a rage-inducing virus, escapes confinement on Monster Island.

Ok, let's do this thing!

Godzilla is © Toho

* * *

CHAPTER FIVE

**_The Monster Island Containment Facility_**

**_Two Weeks Ago_**

"Is it ready for transport?" Professor Shimura asked. Tagaki's response was to hand him a thick, metal briefcase.

"The sample's in there. Just make sure your boys in Japan manage to turn something up," Tagaki nodded. "Because if you don't…" he looked over to one of the massive domes of energy, where Varan was howling madly, frothing at the mouth and throwing itself yet again at the wall. "Then God knows where this could end up."

**_Now_**

"Get the closest defences we have to that thing online, NOW!" Tagaki roared as he picked up the communicator. "G-Force Central Command, this is Monster Island declaring Maximum Code Gold. Ghidorah is loose, repeat: Ghidorah is loose!" On one of the surveillance cameras, something exploded. "Somebody get M.O.G.U.E.R.A. online, damn it!"

Then the roof of the command centre shot downwards before a foot covered in thick golden scales, its owner taking off again. Every light in the building switched off immediately as the outer structure, with so little left to support it, gave way.

King Ghidorah circled the crippled command centre, screeching with glee. From one of its snaking dragon-like heads, a thick bolt of yellow energy shot downward and into the side of the building, bursting out the other side in a shower of smoke and flaming wreckage.

Couching, Tagaki forced himself up in the midst of the smoke. "Somebody," he yelled, "tell me the rest of the island still has power!"

One of the technicians shook his head fearfully to indicate that, indeed, the power supply to the containment systems had been cut off, which, roughly translated in Tagaki's somewhat-stressed mind, was rendered: every damn thing on this island just got out.

And that included the Matango.

Ghidorah swept across the jungle, screeching its supremacy- at the same time as shaking its head and giving a quiet groan. By a small token of mercy, when G-Force had frozen the space creature, they'd also seen fit to dope it up to its eyeballs on three different kinds of tranquiliser.

Unfortunately, it was still as much of a problem as the Incredible Hulk on an extremely bad day, mainly because of whatever influence had driven it into even more of a berserk rage than usual. Sweeping across the jungle, it let out another burning blast, scorching tree and earth before turning towards the former sight of one of the shining domes.

There was an echoing, elephantine roar from below. The golden dragon's left head turned to the source of the sound- and was struck by the solid clump of bone and spikes that formed the end of Anguirus' tail. The shelled monster bellowed its challenge, bristling with fury that begged to be unleashed.

Before it even got the chance, Rodan crashed into Ghidorah from the side, its momentum proving enough to carry both of them across the jungle until one of Ghidorah's mouths clamped around its shoulder, shaking the pterosaur off and pulling back to fire off another bolt of energy.

Then came the golden mist. It fell almost in sheets, forming spiral patterns through the air as it coated Anguirus and Ghidorah. Both turned up as the massive, insect form rose above them.

Tagaki, who by this point was forced to rely in the absence of the base's outer wall to see what was happening, felt himself almost shake at the new arrival.

"Mothra?"

The so-called "insect goddess" rose up into the air on dazzling multicoloured wings, no anger showing in her shining blue eyes even as the two creatures below growled in anger. Screeching its rage at yet another challenger, Ghidorah rose…

…And was struck by a volley of flame as Rodan circled overhead. The effect of this, of course, was that the pollen coating its body ignited into a ball of flame, even of Ghidorah's painful shriek. It was an established fact that the space dragon's skin was, for all intents and purposes, unbreakable, but that was clearly not always an advantage. With nowhere for its rocketing body heat to go, it was like being inside an oven. Coupled with the tranquiliser, it seemed that this form of attack just might work…

As Ghidorah fell from the flames, something else struck its back, and the dragon fell to the ground as sparks of electricity from what were, essentially, giant tasers danced across its body. Behind it, Monster Island's most powerful form of defence raised one arm. Beneath its pointed snout, one arm ended in what resembled a massive, pointed drill, with the other being not so much an arm as a massive assemblage of weaponry. The thick, heavyset body rested on two large feet, and inside, Captain Akane Yashiro, arguably G-Force's finest pilot, sat at the controls.

"That, big guy," she grinned, "is your central nervous system being Kentucky-fried. Now stay…"

Ghidorah, on its thick, powerful wings, shot through the air like a rocket and slammed into M.O.G.U.E.R.A., knocking the machine back.

"…Down."

Anguirus pulled back its head, and the air before it shimmered in the wake of the sonic roar that was unleashed. Wave after wave of solid sound assaulted Ghidorah's ears as it screeched in pain, shaking all three heads as it randomly fired off blasts of energy. Then, from M.O.G.U.E.R.A.'s gun arm, a pair of missiles shot forth on thick, smoky trails, bursting into off-white clouds on contact with Ghidorah's face.

Burned, smacked, electrocuted, half-deafened and, finally, doped up yet again on tranquiliser gas… there was only so much that even the universe's most terrible dreadnought could withstand. King Ghidorah fell into the jungle treetops.

"I'll be damned," Tagaki breathed, "they actually did it…"

"Commander!" A soldier shouted, bursting into what remained of the room, "we have a security breach!"

It was then that Tagaki realised that, during what was essentially a giant-monster prison riot, he'd completely forgotten about the Matango.

The very same Matango that, in their dozens, were currently pouring into the Monster Island command centre. Already in position, a line of soldiers aimed with assault rifles and opened fire. A few Matango fell. More sent their tendrils flailing forward, extending far enough to wrap themselves around the soldiers' throats and drag them to the ground.

The Matango marched on.

Outside, Akane finally managed to get M.O.G.U.E.R.A. back on its feet, and that was when she realised how Anguirus was glaring at the robot, and al three of the island's unique inhabitants were still very much infected with whatever was doing this to them.

And then all hell broke loose.

The entire thing was quick, savage and over in a little under two minutes. It was, in a word, chaos. The armoured shell of M.O.G.U.E.R.A. stood firm, but its electronic systems fried before Anguirus' sonic roar. Above, Rodan slammed into Mothra and sent them both cannoning to the ground. Out of nowhere, Varan burst from the trees and slammed into M.O.G.U.E.R.A, pinning it to the ground. Another pair of massive tasers fired off, and Varan collapsed in a spasm of flailing limbs onto the ground. Rodan rose from the downed Mothra and doused M.O.G.U.E.R.A. in flame. Akane cursed as every screen lit up with "Critical system failure". Powerful though it may be, it was doubtful that anything could stand up to all three of those things.

And then, in their fit of rage, the monsters turned on each other.

Varan leapt into Rodan as the creature sailed overhead, carrying it into the treetops, while Mothra rose and instinctively, attempted to incapacitate the monsters. A cluster of stingers fired from her abdomen and struck Anguirus' head and shoulders, most of them- filled with a non-lethal tranquiliser- simply bounced of the spiky carapace. One might sonic roar later, Mothra fell, screeching in a last moment of consciousness, into the trees.

As Rodan tried to rise, Varan's claws slammed it head back into the ground. Finally, Rodan ceased its struggle, and Varan rose only for Anguirus to charge into his side, dragging him across the ground. Varan rose and the quadruped's clubbed tail smacked into the side of its head. It fell, with a last groan, into the dirt.

Inside the M.O.G.U.E.R.A. cockpit, Akane grabbed hold of one of the few weapons that was still functional. "Come on," she whispered, "just hold still, you…"

A pair of smoking missiles shot from M.O.G.U.E.R.A.'s arm. As Anguirus turned, the projectiles collided with its face and burst into clouds of tranquiliser gas. With a last, raging bark, Anguirus collapsed to the ground even as M.O.G.U.E.R.A. finally shut down.

The fight, Akane realised as everything turned dark around her, was over, and whatever was behind this had just incapacitated the whole of Monster Island- and then some.

And what the hell was Mothra doing there?

At the same time, in the bowels of the command centre, the hordes of Matango tore off the foot-thick steel door. The metal locking mechanism and hinges never stood a chance against the hordes of berserk strength. And there, in front of them, sat their goal…

But not, some instinct told them, all of it.

Even as they stepped forward, the Matango seemed to melt, limbs drooping and liquefying into grey, fungal pools. Tendrils of liquid rose up, coiling around the meteorite…

When it was over, the amorphous, gooey blob smashed its way through the wall as if there was nothing there, and finally, it was into the sea, shooting away like an arrow through the water.

It was free. Free to finally reclaim what it wanted.

And now it was so, so close…

**_Tokyo General Hospital_**

"Where are we going?" Kobayashi demanded as he and Tsukioka were led out of the hospital.

"We're beinging a hazmat team to the university," Shindo answered, "we need to find out what's…"

"Professor Shimura," a pair of tiny voices said. All three turned to the source- even though, apparently, it was on top of a wooden bench.

There stood two tiny twin girls, looking up at them urgently.

"You have the chance know to end this," they said in unison.

"What the hell now?" Kobayashi muttered. "Who are you?" he asked, this time aloud.

"We are the Shobijin. Please, there is no time. You must hurry. Find Professor Shimura, and he can take you to the infection's source. Before it returns, it must be destroyed."

"What must be?" Shindo asked.

"Um- am I the only one who's freaked out here?" Tsukioka suddenly gibbered. "I mean, we're talking to…"

"G-Force has a long history of involvement with the Shobijin," Shindo explained curtly, "think of them as messengers."

"Like a foreign ambassador?"

"Pretty foreign, yes. And Shimura does seem to be at the centre of all this. We need to find him, and…"

Kobayashi was immediately distracted when his cell phone jingled in his pocket. Recognising the number, he answered immediately. "Hidemi?"

"Koji," Hidemi said frantically from the other end of the line, "you need to get home!"

"I can't…"

"Koji!" Hidemi screamed this time, "you don't understand, there's- there's someone trying to…"

Kobayahi heard the door splinter. Hidemi screamed. The line went dead.

* * *

And there we have it. I tried to make the fight quick and chaotic, what with the whole island going berserk; the idea should be that you don't know who's going to attack who next. I personally very much like the idea of M.O.G.U.E.R.A. being the sort of "prison warden" for Monster Island. Plus: a warning from the Shobijin!

We've had one more accurate guess. I'm amazed more people haven't gotten this one.

Anyway, all reviews welcome!


	6. Chapter 6

**The Story So Far**: Professor Ken Shimura is called in to study a meteorite on Monster Island; however, a virus in the meteorite drives the kaiju into a fit of rage. Two weeks later, the same virus seems to have Tokyo in the grip of a spree of violence, and also causes a destructive battle on Monster Island. Detective Koji Kobayashi learns of the virus, but as it infects through contact with the meteorite, how it has infected all of Tokyo remains unknown. Kobayashi resolves to track down Shimura, but then receives a call from his wife Hidemi as she is attacked at home.

Ok, let's do this thing!

Godzilla is © Toho

* * *

CHAPTER SIX

**_Two Weeks Ago_**

**_Tokyo International University_**

"Hi, Dad!" Aoki cheered, running up and hugging her father. "How was the trip?"

"Great," Professor Shimura smiled, picking his daughter up. "Brought you a present." After hearing about Aoki, Professor Tagaki had insisted that Shimura take a souvenir for her. It was a six-inch figurine of Anguirus originally created for tactical maps.

"Cool!" Aoki beamed, immediately starting to play with the toy monster.

Smiling to himself, Shimura entered the isolation chamber, opened the case and placed a fragment of the meteorite on the metal table. Then he turned back to the door, and…

_You…_

Shimura turned. The voice seemed to have come from nowhere.

_You… you have… what I… need…_

**_Kobayashi's home_**

**_Now_**

Kobayashi's patrol car screeched to a halt, and the detective leapt out onto the sidewalk, drawing his revolver.

"We don't have time for this!" Shindo yelled, climbing out behind Tsukioka.

"My wife's in there," Kobayashi snarled as he kicked the door in.

The apartment inside was a wreck: furniture hurled across the room, the TV smashed to pieces, the dining table smashed in half…

Damn it, whatever had done this, Kobayashi seethed inwardly, if they'd laid a finger on his wife, he'd…

God, he'd never been so angry in his life…

"Hidemi!" He shouted again, "Hidemi!"

Then it exploded through the doorway to the kitchen. Seven feet tall, lurching forward and covered in grey skin and puss-filled fungi. And clad in the tattered remains of a white lab coat.

"Shimura," Tsukioka realised. "Huh. Two birds, one st-"

The Matango leapt forward.

"Move!" Kobayashi shouted as they both ducked, "you heard the Shobijin, we need him alive-"

There was a howl of anger. The Matango froze, arms in the air, screeching in pain. Then it fell silently to the floor. Behind it, Hidemi stood, the smashed remains of the VCR in her hands, gasping for breath.

"Oh my God," Hidemi gasped as Koayashi embraced her, "He- Koji, he said he was after you… I… I've never done that to… oh God, what's happening to us?"

"Wow," Tsukioka observed as the Matango shifted back to human form, "he wasn't so tough."

"Must've hit a vulnerable spot," Shindo thought out loud, kneeling down. "Professor? Can you hear me?"

Shimura awoke with a long, stabbing gasp, flailing as he did so.

"Shimura," Kobayashi snarled, "you son of a bitch!" he half-ran across the room, delivering a swift, soccer-style kick to the man's side.

"Kobayashi!" Tsukioka yelled, restraining his partner, "calm down!"

"Please," Shindo gasped, raising a hand in defence, "I was just- I was just looking for you, I swear! I wasn't trying to hurt anyone!"

Still snarling, Kobayashi finally got a hold over himself. "What do you want?" he demanded.

"We…" Shindo sat up, and when he next looked up, he looked like a drowning man thrown a life preserver. "We have to stop it."

**_Outside_**

Once Hidemi was safe and well and on her way to a hospital- and Tsukioka had provided Shindo with some clothes- the remaining four were outside in the pouring rain.

"Alright," Kobayashi said after he'd fully calmed down, "first question, because I'm getting _seriously_ tired of this: what the hell is going on?"

"A virus," Shimura replied darkly, "of extraterrestrial origin, that by now will have infected just about every living thing in this city."

"But how?" Shindo pressed, "On Monster Island, it was only received through direct contact with the meteorite. How did it spread all over Tokyo?"

"Think about it," Shimura replied, even bleaker, "what's been happing for the last two weeks?" He looked up to the thick, dark clouds.

Kobayashi felt the colour drain from his face. "The rain," he breathed, "it's in the rain."

"Introduced into the city's water supply," Shimura replied mournfully, "evaporating and falling onto the city as rain, and I… I did it."

"What?"

"You don't understand," Shimura said desperately, "it's not just a virus. It's… it's some kind of creature. An intelligence."

"Those mushroom-people-things?" Tsukioka hazarded.

"No. They were only part of it. It needed a catalyst. It's why it drove them all to such anger… human adrenaline. That's what it needs."

"To do what?"

"Please," Shimura insisted, "we don't have time. The fragment's at the laboratory. While I was… one of those things… I saw into its mind. I know what it's doing, and we don't have that kind of time. It has to be destroyed, now!"

"What does?"

Shimura looked at Kobayashi, trembling.

"The codename for it is… Uchujin."

**_Tokyo International College_**

Soundlessly, it had moved through the city's sewers. Now its formless shape slithered up, forcing the manhole away as it moved across the campus grounds and into the biology lab. It moved across the desks, beakers and floor, and through the smashed window of the containment room.

And finally, moving onto the last fragment of the meteorite, it had found the rest of itself.

Slowly, it began to solidify.

* * *

And thus, the enemy monster is at last revealed… with just two chapters to go before the end of the story.

I'll say now that I have my own design in mind for Uchujin, and to make it more interesting it won't be humanoid. You'll see.

Next Chapter: G-Force Vs Uchujin! Plus: At long last, Godzilla hits town!


	7. Chapter 7

Ok, we're onto the penultimate chapter here; enjoy the showdown, and be here on Halloween for the conclusion!

**The Story So Far**: An alien meteorite lands on Earth carrying a virus that drives living things into a frenzy of rage and turns human beings exposed to it into fungal "Matango" creatures. Professor Ken Shimura takes a sample to Tokyo and, for some reason, releases the virus into the city's water supply, prompting a wave of violent crime. Meanwhile Godzilla is sighted not far from Japan. Detective Koji Kobayashi encounters Shimura and G-Force agent Shindo and learns of the origins of the threat, which appears to take form at Tokyo International College.

Godzilla is © Toho

* * *

CHAPTER SEVEN

**_Two Weeks Ago_**

**_Tokyo International College_**

Professor Shimura stared at the rock. He felt himself start to shake. It was ridiculous, he told himself. It couldn't talk. How could it?

"What are you?' he breathed, thinking out loud more than anything else.

_I have… what you… want. I can… help you. All I want… is…_

Shimura felt it snaking its tendrils into his mind, his own willing starting to slip away. One some level, he would always know that he had been aware of what it was doing to his mind.

"What do you want?"

It told him.

**_Now_**

**_Tokyo Bay_**

It was sudden, like an explosion of rushing water. The docks and walkways lining the bay turned into shouting, screaming mobs.

One hundred and eighty feet of lean, charcoal-grey muscle rose from the water and sniffed at the air. A thick, powerful tail lolled in the water as jagged dorsal fins bristled with raw, territorial instinct that had long-since been carefully arranged into something every bit as effective as intelligence.

Snarling, Godzilla homed in on the threat.

**_Tokyo International College_**

It just wasn't the kind of thing Koji Kobayashi had ever expected to see first-hand. The repeated giant monster threats in the world were like terrorism; the kind of thing you only ever hear about in the news and never expect to happen to you. Yet now here he was, moving into the campus along with an entire G-Force unit consisting of three jeeps with mounted machine guns and soldiers armed with what Shindo had described to him as "Maser rifles". Ray guns, that was what they basically were so far as he'd gleamed.

"Alright, Shimura," he demanded fiercely, "what is this thing. What does it want?"

_Shape…_

Kobayashi whirled to the source of the sound. It seemed to have bypassed his ears entirely. "What was that?"

"Uchujin," Shimura trembled. "That's how it… it talks, I suppose. That's what it is."

"What does it mean "shape"?"

_Form_, the voice echoed. _I spent so long in the cold, in the long, endless cold, the space, the nothing. Then I fell, and there was warmth, and light, and form._

"That's what you want?" Kobayashi pressed, "A form?"

_It is what I have now_. It waited for the information to sink in. _I will grow. Spread. Cover this planet._

The jeeps ground to a halt near the biology lab.

_And I will not be stopped._

"Shindo," one of the soldiers reported, "Godzilla! He's in Tokyo! All forces are to move in."

"Belay that," Shindo snapped, "the problem's here." He looked up at the thing that sat in the wreckage. "Right here."

"How did it do this?" Tsukioka breathed.

_It waited here. Called to me. I let it grow, let out what was inside all of them. Let out the rage. It was the key to the change. Their rage, in the forms, they gave me shape._

And what a shape it was.

The thing could best be described as a near-spherical brain, covered with fungal protrusions and a coating of slate-grey hide. From almost every one of the dozens of holes in the bony armour, thick, ringed tendrils extended and dug into the ground.

_You will not stop me._

The tendrils rose in showers of earth. They lashed out with the speed and raging savagery of coiled-up pythons. The soldiers, well-trained as they would have to be, fired. Thick, blue bursts of lighting-like energy struck the nearest tendril, severing it with a loud "buzz". They missed the other, and a pair of thick, dripping stingers shot from the end, jabbing into the nearest soldier. He gave a final scream, the most primal thing Kobayashi ever heard.

In his last moments, the man screamed and cursed. He raged and foamed at the mouth, then slumped.

"It must be a fatal dose of the virus!" Shindo yelled as all ducked under a tendril, stabbing into a nearby jeep and hurling it away like a coin. "I have to get to the lab!"

"What?" Kobayashi, pulling him out of the path of a blast.

"An antidote!" Shindo yelled, "I started work on an antidote as soon as it released me! We have to get it to the people!"

The soldiers grouped and fired as one. The concentrated firepower blazed onto Uchujin's hide, and it let out a deep, thundering scream before three tendrils slammed down into the middle of the soldiers, impaling one and scattering the rest.

There were too few of them, Kobayashi realised bleakly, and they were too small. They needed more firepower to even make a dent in that thing.

And this, he realised, was the only chance they would get.

They couldn't stop it, and in a few moments, it would seed, or germinate, or whatever it was going to.

"We need a miracle," he said hopelessly.

There was a roar. A thundering, bellowing roar that sounded like the voice of hell.

A massive, four-toed, grey foot slammed down into the middle of the scattered soldiers. Burning orange eyes focused on Uchujin.

"He's immune to the virus," Shindo realised, "there were sightings recently, but no attacks, even when he was near these waters. Because of his healing ability…" he trailed off. "It's possible."

"What is?" Kobayashi yelled over the monster's roar.

"That creature, Detective," Shindo said slowly and reverently, "is the miracle you were just talking about."

With footsteps that sounded like erupting volcanoes, Godzilla launched himself into battle.

* * *

Short, I know, but there's only so many moves and such that I can think of for such a non-humanoid thing as my interpretation of Uchujin, and I wanted to save the good stuff for the fight.

Next Time: It's what you've all been waiting for… Godzilla Vs Uchujin!

All Reviews Welcome!


	8. Chapter 8

And now, ladies and gentlemen, the exciting (hopefully) conclusion of "Rage"! Enjoy the climactic brawl between Godzilla, King of the Monsters, and Uchujin, the viral horror from beyond the stars!

The Story So Far: An alien meteorite lands on Earth, carrying a virus that drives creatures into a fit of rage. The intelligence inside the meteor, dubbed Uchujin, takes control of Professor Ken Shimura and has him release the virus into Tokyo's water supply, creating a violent crime wave as Uchujin tries to use human adrenaline as the key to reforming itself. Just as G-Force arrives to try and destroy it, Uchujin is reborn and intends to germinate and conquer the planet for itself. Only Godzilla can stop the alien menace…

Godzilla is © Toho

* * *

CHAPTER EIGHT

**_Two Weeks Ago_**

It was ready. It had taken only days with the knowledge it had given him. Professor Shimura had stumbled through it almost in a daze, barely aware of anything except the voice.

_Now_, it beckoned.

Shimura pressed the switch. The containers, gushing their liquid contents, dropped into Tokyo Bay. Immediately he felt the dark, alien thing slip out of his mind, leaving him standing still and shaking with only a single question on his lips:

""What have I done…?"

**_Now_**

**_Tokyo International College_**

Shindo had given the order immediately: fall back. Nobody was to open fire, if only because it wouldn't be of any help. With more men and firepower, they might have caused some damage to Uchujin, but it would only provoke Godzilla into attacking the troops.

For better or worse, this was between those two now, and the fight could go either way. Godzilla, on the one hand, was much larger- Uchujin's central body wasn't much bigger than his head. On the other hand, just what Uchujin was capable of was unknown.

It was Uchujin that attacked first; a wave of tendrils shot up towards Godzilla, only to find themselves sliced in half by a clawed hand. Growing back even as they retreated, the attacking limbs were replaced with others, which just as quickly found themselves gnashed to pieces by serrated fangs. None of it stopped Godzilla's advance, the Monster King bellowing his challenge.

Then, as Godzilla approached, ropes of thick tentacles, coiled around each other, wrapped around his head, clamping his crocodilian jaws shut, other lassoing his torso and arms. Before Godzilla could do anything other than snarl in anger, dozens of the appendages jabbed their fanged ends into Godzilla's hide, just barely hard and strong enough to slice through the weaker points in-between massive scales. A painful hiss escaped the saurian's throat as the burning poison was shot directly into his veins.

Koji Kobayashi watched, wide-eyed with dread, as Godzilla fell sideways, crashing to earth in a cloud of dust. Uchujin withdrew its tendrils, rumbling in satisfaction.

In the following seconds, Kobayashi noticed two things. The first was that Shimura had made a break for it, back into the lab. The second, as he turned to follow, was that Godzilla was already righting himself, eyes narrowed. If the low growl could be translated, he had a strong feeling that it would mean "Is that all you got?"

Shindo, on the other hand, had his own realisations. Before, Godzilla had been acting purely on basic, territorial instinct. Nothing really for him in the fight. But now, even if his healing power was already counteracting the poison, the virus just might take its effect. Godzilla was a creature that burned cities, crushed armies and defeated mighty enemies… on a normal day. And Uchujin had just filled him with what was, essentially, liquid rage.

Shindo almost pitied the poor dumb creature.

Godzilla lashed out, jaws parted, and clamped two sets of gleaming fangs around Uchujin's body. Tentacles that attempted to holster it to the ground snapped like apron strings. Lifting it up, he snarled savagely and shook the creature from side-to-side before releasing it, sending it flying into the main building with an impact that made Shindo just pray that the troops had evacuated the place in time.

"Shimura!" Kobayashi yelled, grabbing the man's shoulder as he kneeled by a desk.

"I've got it," Shimura said frantically, holding up a thick, mercifully-unbroken beaker full of clear liquid. "We have to get this out of here, now!"

Stirring in the wreckage, Uchujin, amidst a mass of severed tendrils, came to the realisation that it would not be a match for this opponent. As Godzilla charged, orange eyes burning with rage, it reached forward with what few tentacles it had left, desperately trying to drag itself away.

Godzilla was not a stupid creature; rather than an intelligence, he had, as has been said, simply a careful arrangement of instincts that had been long-versed in cunning and savagery long before the time of man. His was not a mind that understood tact or surrender or retreat. For him, there was only one way the fight would end. The rows of spinal plates on his back flashed blue. A burning eye turned red. Finally, a thick, blazing stream of brilliant blue-white fire burned clear through the tendrils and let only the helpless main body of Uchujin.

Uchujin tried to rock itself away. It failed. In its last moments, it gave a shrill, piercing scream at the fury that, after so long, its form was taken from it, this time forever, and it understood that it never truly stood a chance. The blast came at a temperature that could vaporise titanium. Finally, Godzilla leaned down and gave an inquisitive sniff at the ashes that had been Uchujin.

Godzilla pulled back his head and let his thundering roar of victory shake the heavens. Then, as if nothing had even happened, he turned back towards the sea.

**_One Week Later_**

**_Tokyo Bay_**

Kobayashi stepped out of his car and inhaled a deep lungful of sea air. The water was sparkling, and the sky was clear and blue. The best part: there had hardly been an incident in four days.

"Detective," Shindo greeted him. "Thanks for coming. I just thought you'd like to know, Professor Shimura's antidote worked. We managed to reverse the effects on the mutated humans as well."

Kobayashi looked behind him. Shimura was there, kneeling in front of seven-year-old Aoki. He hugged her with grateful tears in his eyes.

"What happened?" Kobayashi asked.

"Funny thing," Shindo began, "despite everything, Uchujin was as good as his word. It gave Shimura what it promised."

"Which was?"

Shimura, somehow beaming ear-to-ear, approached them, having clearly heard the last part of the conversation. "Aoki," he smiled. "She's cured."

"She's what?"

"Every sign of her condition's receded. The doctors said it must be caused by the physical power the virus gave her."

"So what happens now?"

Shimura's smile turned into a sombre visage. He folded his hands over each other. "That's for the UN to decide," he said bleakly.

"I'll do everything I can to help," Shindo said apologetically, "but…"

"I unleashed an alien threat that nearly tore this city apart," Shimura said blankly. "I poisoned the whole town and caused God-knows-how-many deaths. Chances are I'll be looking at the walls of a cell for the rest of my life."

"I'm sorry," Kobayashi said. It was hard to think of anything else.

"Don't be," Shimura sighed. "You helped stop this. After all," he chuckled half-heartedly, "we saved the world. Us and Godzilla. That has to count for something, right? But… if it's alright, Detective… I'd like to ask something of you."

"Of course."

Shimura glanced guiltily back at Aoki. "It's just… she doesn't really have any next of kin. Her mother died a long time ago, and she doesn't have any aunts or uncles. So I need to know…" he turned back to Kobayashi, "will you watch out for her? I think she'll need it."

Kobayashi nodded. He smiled. "Of course."

Shimura nodded slowly. Unseen before, two darkly-dressed agents took him by the arms. Kobayashi turned away before he had to see Aoki as her father what was happening.

At least it was over, he told himself. It had been stopped. But…

He couldn't help remembering what it had said to him.

_I let it grow, let out what was inside all of them. Let out the rage._

It had let it out. That, Kobayashi realised emptily, was all it had done. Just let out what was already there.

And it was still there, in everyone he would ever know or meet or walk past in the street.

Kobayashi began the walk back home. It somehow seemed so much longer than before.

THE END

* * *

And thus the story comes to a close. I know the fight was a little one-sided, but I liked the idea of Uchujin's rage-virus backfiring massively like that. Anyway, hopefully it was an enjoyable story.

All Reviews Welcome!


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